This year, Saint-Etienne does not want to be content with maintenance. Sixth at the end of last season, the Greens want to continue to look up the table. The immediate objective, aiming for fifth place at the end of the season, is part of a broader desire to bridge the gap between ASSE and the best teams in the championship.

AS Saint-Etienne has completed its preparation, six weeks long. A choice of coach Hervé Didier who wanted to play more friendly matches and give play time to all players, before moving together the probable holders on the last meetings preparation.

A period when the work turned around the offensive game, the construction of the attacks and how to ensure the possession of ball. A main axis of work followed at the end of preparation by sessions devoted to the defensive aspects of the game.

The Hervé Didier coach with the ASSE players

A rejuvenated defense
The defense is also one of the sites of the team Etienne. ASSE saw the start this summer of its two defending players in the axis of the defense: Sabrina Viguier (part at IF Limhamn Bunkeflo in Swedish D2) and Marie Josefina Karlsson who stopped his career. A defensive axis that remains to be rebuilt and which will be one of the concerns of Hervé Didier on this beginning of the season.

Among the summer recruits, Marion Boishardy should be aligned in the axis. Arrived this summer from Guingamp with Noémie Carage, she arrives with significant experience, counting more than a hundred matches in the first division with the Breton club. She should be lined up with Teninsoun Sissoko, tenured several times at the end of last season, a hinge that has been tested several times by Hervé during friendly matches this summer.

This renewal of the central hinge is a reflection of the more general rejuvenation of the Etienne team. With the departure of these two Axiales and Julie Morel, who stops his career, the ASSE has seen three experienced thirty years. In terms of recruitment, the players included in the group are for many 20 years or less, with Noémie Carage, but also the two Lyon Maëlle Garbino and Lucie Pingeon or Kelly Gago, 17, arrived from Dijon.

Keep the best players
For Hervé Didier, this use of young players is the result of both the need but also the desire to build a team on a medium-term perspective. In recent years, ASSE has often served as a springboard for players to become and which are revealed in Saint-Étienne before joining the big teams of the championship.

The latest example, Sarah Palacin recruited this summer at PSG after several seasons noticed in the Forez. Before her, Kheira Hamraoui, Camille Catala or Méline Gérard had distinguished themselves in Saint-Étienne before joining one of the teams of the now "Big 4" of D1.

Mylène Chavas, European Champion U19 this summer will take place in the goals of ASSE this season after the departure of Pauline Peyraud-Magnin

A scenario that could be renewed with players like goalkeeper Mylène Chavas, shortlisted with the France U20 team or Rose Lavaud in attack, and who are part of the players Etienne who could arouse envy among the teams at the top of the table.

For Hervé Didier, the capacity of Saint-Étienne will pass by the ability of the Vertes to retain their best elements and thus advance the team. For now, Saint-Etienne is aiming for fifth place, the head of the "second championship" won last year by Rodez, a point before the ASSE, sixth. An objective on which the coach of Vertes still wants to "remain cautious", with probably in mind the two difficult seasons that preceded this sixth place where Saint-Etienne had hooked on the wire his maintenance in D1.

The team of Rodez, the players of Hervé Didier will receive it during the first day, a team that the Etienne coach considers as a sort of "barometer" of the level of his team. The two teams met in a friendly match in August with a 1-0 victory over Saint-Étienne.

In January, the ASSE had hung Montpellier 1-1, having held Juvisy in check 2-2 at the opening of the championship

Before being able to join the floor above, the ASSE also hopes to hang now teams of the top 4. A habit that Stéphanoises do not want to give up: last year, they had already held in check Juvisy and Montpellier at the time. the reception of both teams in the league. The kind of matches that feed the ambitions in Forez until we can achieve them.